Chapter 17
To-do list
Finalise accounts from PTA Wine Quiz
Check on subscription to Asana Rebel
New shoes (Jacob)
Download new school meals app
Sew Leo’s blazer pocket
Buy outstanding items for Leo’s Duke of Edinburgh expedition (whistle, rucksack liner, blister pads, titanium cutlery, head torch, collapsible bowl, dry wash gel, sock liners)
Buy shares in Mountain Warehouse
Buy more socks (Jacob)
Mum birthday present
Mum birthday cake
Mum candles
Check with Dad if she is 73 or 74
Organise outfit for ‘Rock Star Day’ at school
Start DIY panelling. COME THE F*** ON
Search Vinted for black jacket he wants for birthday that costs ￡480 when purchased new. Failing that, go on the game
Descale kettle
Jacob has a new-found passion for the music of Kate Bush. Which I’m thrilled about because a) it’s Kate Bush and b) it’s not the German version of ‘The Gummy Bear Song’, which at one point he was playing around the clock, absolutely screwing my Spotify algorithm.
At least, that was what I’d thought, before we sat in the car on the way home from fencing club on Saturday morning and we listened to ‘Wuthering Heights’ approximately 18 times. Now, as I pile laundry into the washing machine, I find myself singing along to the earworm in my head. It really isn’t a song you can just hum gently along to, is it? You can only give it all you’ve got.
‘OUT ON THE WILY AND WIINNNNDY MOORS WE ROLL AND FALL IN GREEEEN…’
‘UHMIGODDD . Mum . Seriously?!’
Leo is at the utility room entrance in full muddy rugby kit, his face twisted into an expression that suggests he doesn’t appreciate my vocal skills.
‘No offence, but you sound like a tortured cat,’ he huffs.
‘Glad you said, “No offence” because I might have found that insulting otherwise,’ I reply, but he can’t dampen my mood. It’s only this morning that I realise how much more energetic I’m feeling since my HRT started to kick in.
Then I notice the kitchen floor, which is literally covered in mud from his boots.
‘Oh, Leo! Look at the state of the tiles!’
He casts his gaze over them and shrugs. ‘Calm down. It’s only a bit of muck.’
‘Yes, but I mopped it an hour ago.’
‘It’s not like it won’t come off,’ he huffs, heading to the fridge.
‘You’re right. The mop’s in the utility room. Off you go,’ I say, nodding to the door.
He tuts and emerges with a block of cheese. ‘Can’t you do it? I’m busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘The match is about to start.’
‘Well, I hate to disrupt your hectic schedule, but no, I can’t.’ I fetch the mop myself and thrust it into his hand as I go in search of Jacob, who is in the garden bouncing on his trampoline.
‘Come on, sweetheart. You really need to get this maths homework done. I’ve asked you twice this morning already.’
I finally managed to get Jacob a maths tutor, who would only do video calls rather than in-person lessons, and seems to be doing very little to stoke my son’s enthusiasm for the subject.
‘I can’t. I’ve got a headache,’ he shouts back, before performing three progressively higher bounces that culminate in a full 360-degree somersault.
‘Maybe stop trampolining then.’
‘That makes it feel better,’ he says.
‘Jacob, get in here,’ I say, tersely. ‘You’ve got twenty seconds.’
He ignores me as a text arrives from Denise Dandy.
Hi Lisa. Just back from Paris and was going through the inventory of PTA equipment following the Wine Quiz in my absence. There seems to be one trifle bowl and a fish slice missing. Can you explain please?
What I really want to do is reply with: Thanks for asking – the event went well and we raised a record ￡1,300! Also, we only ate cheese and drank wine. Trifle and haddock weren’t on the menu.
I decide to be the better woman.
Sorry, Denise. I don’t recall seeing either. Hope you had a nice anniversary.
Outside, Jacob is still bouncing. ‘Right, young man. I’m cutting off the Wi-Fi on your iPad for the rest of the day unless you come and do this.’
I hear an amused snort from Leo’s direction.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘Just that you always say that and never do it.’
My chest inflates with indignation, though that’s partly because I’ve been caught out.
As anyone knows, the number one rule of effective parenting is never to make idle threats that you can’t see through. That’s fine in theory. But the only thing my kids are bothered about is the Wi-Fi and sadly, despite multiple attempts, I still haven’t worked out how to block individual devices without turning the whole system off. Given that I want to watch Strictly tonight – and that both kids seem to have a mystifying talent for getting around any ‘parent safe’ gizmos I attempt to install – the only one who tends to be punished . . . is me.
‘This time I will,’ I declare, with an ominous glare. ‘You just watch.’
I go to the patio door again. ‘Jacob. Now please!’
He begrudgingly climbs off the trampoline and trails inside. ‘I don’t know why you always have to shout, Mum.’
I turn around, take a deep breath and see that Leo is gone, having apparently completed the mopping. I know this because the muddy smears he’d left on the tiles are now just as muddy, but also awash with dirty water, the mop is lying on the floor and the bucket is next to it. On top of that, every bit of paraphernalia he’s used to make his cheese sandwich – butter, bread, knife – is spread out across the worktop.
‘LEO!’ I call up the stairs.
‘I’m in the shower!’
Defeated, I start to clear up myself, silently apologising to any future wife of his – if there is one, that is – for failing to raise him as the feminist ally I always SWORE I would. Am I the only woman in the world whose kids are running rings around me? I am grappling with a sense of my own inadequacy when a text arrives. It’s from Zach.
I have four new tennis balls and nobody to play with. Could you be tempted into a hit? Fully prepared for you to kick my ass.
For a brief moment, I feel a lightness beneath my breastbone. It’s the oddest, stupidest schoolgirlish feeling, like getting a Valentine’s card from a boy in sixth form. I bite the inside of my mouth and type back.
Don’t think you need worry on that front. You should give Nora a ring. She really is an excellent coach.
I might just do that. Either way, I wasn’t lying last night. I really did have fun.
I start writing: Me too, then I stop myself.
What the hell do I think I’m doing? I can’t send something like that. Something . . . flirty.
I remind myself that this man has made life very difficult for me as a result of his ‘reservations’, whether he’s now backtracking or not. More importantly, aren’t my flirting days over? They certainly should be.
I decide not to respond, instead clicking on Instagram. I bypass all the reels it seems to send my way these days. Serums for thinning hair. Interiors accounts featuring women running their fingers along immaculate kitchen tops to a whimsical, acoustic track. And various ADHD accounts which the platform seems to have diagnosed me with all by itself. I search ‘Zach Russo’ and to my astonishment . . . there he is, with a public account. I click on his profile.
There aren’t masses of photos. He’s clearly one of those people that dips in and out of social media without much conviction. The majority are of him and his daughter Mila. He was right about her being adorable, even I’ll concede that, despite my long-held conviction that no child on earth could possibly ever be as cute as my own were.
There aren’t many captions, which usually amount to just one or two words – ‘My Girl’, or ‘In training’, below the selfie of them at a baseball match. I keep scrolling, and there’s a black-and-white photo of him cradling her when she was tiny. It takes me a moment to realise what it reminds me of – that famous old Athena poster, ‘Man and Baby’. Zach isn’t bare-chested; he’s wearing a white T-shirt and his hair is a little longer than now. But she looks so tiny, cradled in his big muscular arms, and the tender look in his eyes would melt anyone’s heart.
I continue down his feed, past a couple of cityscapes of New York and LA, before coming across a clutch of posts from five years ago. They’re photos of an attractive young woman with dark hair and a bright smile, with a charity logo overlaid on top of them with the initials: the Jenna Russo Memorial Fund.
I look more closely and read Zach’s caption.
‘I’ll be running the Boston Marathon this year in memory of my twin sister Jenna, who tragically died aged 27. Please read our JustGiving page and donate if you can.’
The link is still in his biography.
I click on it to find that, over the years, $34,746 has been raised by 431 supporters through a variety of ‘Russo Family Memorial Walks’ and other charity challenges. I continue to read.
Story:
We have decided to raise funds in Jenna’s memory for the NEDA – the National Eating Disorder Association. Their mission is to end the pain and suffering caused by eating disorders, something we know Jenna felt passionately about.
Jenna suffered with anorexia nervosa for more than 13 years. She developed it in her teens when she was still at high school and had just been scouted by a high-profile modelling agency at the age of 15. The following year, she was walking the runways of Paris and looked to all the world as if she was living the dream. But she was existing on an extreme diet to try and maintain her figure and that would ultimately lead to her spending a large part of her life in and out of eating disorder units across the state. Over the course of her illness, Jenna had over 25 hospital admissions.
When she left modelling, she went on to study for a degree in psychology at Colombia, for which she achieved a 3.9 GPA. Living with this chronic illness meant she was unable to start a career, despite her intelligence and drive. Nevertheless, she was always determined to continue to fight and was still able to enjoy her life, friends and family, right until the end.
The pain of seeing someone you love suffer in the way she did is devastating. It had the potential to tear apart our family, but instead it made us stronger and love each other even more. Our story is by no means unique and if there’s one legacy we know Jenna would want, it’s to help others like us.